Archives

All posts for the month July, 2017

When a disgusting con artist has become President and shown himself to be even less competent for the job than even his opponents thought, and when every single policy, every decision he makes, is wrong, and dozens of people with various motives are involved, complicit, or opportunistic, the situation seems complicated enough. The need to oppose his outrageous actions, analyze his bizarre behavior, and understand how the disastrous election happened, all consume our attention.

We must pay attention, but in doing so we need to avoid both distraction and underestimation. The bizarre, contradictory, petty, and offensive statements and actions of Trump are designed for both effects. That doesn’t mean that he is secretly competent to be President, nor that he is actually a decent human being. He is indeed being himself, which has always served to focus attention away from whatever deception he has planned. In his regime there are sharper, more dangerous minds than his shaping the agenda. We must remember that.

THAT RUSSIAN THING

The issue of the Russian interference, serious as it is, is a bit of a distraction as well. The problem is that some pay too much attention to the Russian part. Russian efforts to influence the outcome of elections is nothing new. Nikita Krushchev wanted to get Kennedy elected, and believed he had actually helped. It’s doubtful that anything he ordered had any effect, but he thought the younger, less experienced candidate would be easier to deal with.

The US covertly and overtly tries to influence the outcome of elections anywhere they may affect national interests (as defined by corporate entities, not the voting public). We know that the US has gone so far as to instigate, finance, and arm rebellions, provide support for coups, and send military force to overthrow regimes, in addition to the usual routine propaganda.

But, for the US to be subject, or vulnerable, to covert attempts to affect one of our elections has been a shock. During the cold war anti-Communist paranoia would have made that difficult. But once the USSR broke up and Russia evolved into something of a conservative capitalist state, the ideological conflict seemed to be over. One might have thought that peaceful coexistence would reign, and might have if the US were not so intent on economic global domination. Attempting to economically invade the Russian sphere of influence in Ukraine, engineering a pro-Western coup, resulted in Russian pushback, which led to economic sanctions, which effectively prevent Russia from developing its valuable untapped oil fields.

Of course, leaving that oil where it is would be of great benefit in slowing climate change, but neither Putin nor Exxon-Mobil saw it that way. Trump’s populist rhetoric diverged from the usual Republican hawkishness into a mix of nationalism and isolationism that seemed to favor ending sanctions and interventionism in general. Neither Putin nor Trump cared about climate change.

So, Russia did what it could to elect Trump, going beyond attempts to influence voters with email hacks and a flood of propaganda websites, attempting to compromise registration and vote tabulating directly. Even so, the important thing is not so much that Russia did to us what our government has done to others, but the high probability that the Trump campaign was cooperating.

Trump did indeed try to remove sanctions at one point, but did not succeed. He has pulled out of the Paris Agreement, which has relieved pressure on the Russian fossil fuel industries to constrain expansion. His lukewarm verbal support for NATO is encouraging to Putin.

The threat of the Trump regime has little to do with Russia.
Better relations and more cooperation regarding Syria would be a reasonable goal. The danger is in the drive of Trump, Bannon, Sessions, and others to gain de-facto power beyond that allocated to the Executive branch. There are plenty of warning signs that the kind and degree of authority the Trump regime wants is far beyond that of any previous Presidency. He has already pushed against every power-limiting entity in Washington with the attitude that his orders should be supreme and his statements should be automatically accepted as truth. He has blatantly disregarded norms and customs of ethical behavior, including the expectation of transparency regarding conflicts of interests. He has even brought up the Presidential power to pardon, and speculated that he could even pardon himself.

The Big Data Threat

First, we should pay close attention to a tactic that may well have been more significant in his election win than Russian help or his public appeals to bigotry. That is the use of “big data”– immense and highly detailed data collection on voters that enables narrowly targeting them with the most psychologically effective messaging. Essentially it is the same method that Facebook and Google use for targeted commercial advertising, but instead of matching interests and products, it identifies personality types in great detail in order to hit them with specific messages to which they are likeliest to be vulnerable.

Politicians have always tried to convey messages relating to different groups’ interests, which is quite natural. The interests of various segments are usually well-known or easily intuited, and in most cases there is no conflict between the various parts of a given candidate’s support base.
The more advanced method goes well beyond that, and the more we understand how it works, the more troubled we should be.The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijackedhttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy

“There are three strands to this story. How the foundations of an authoritarian surveillance state are being laid in the US. How British democracy was subverted through a covert, far-reaching plan of coordination enabled by a US billionaire. And how we are in the midst of a massive land grab for power by billionaires via our data. Data which is being silently amassed, harvested and stored. Whoever owns this data owns the future.”

Cambridge Analytica is at the center of both the Brexit and the Trump campaigns. Involved are AggregateIQ, SCL Canada, Robert Mercer, Steve Bannon, and Peter Thiel, among others. Please read the entire article.

Now, once you’ve read and understand where this is going, consider the Trump regime’s “request” for the personal data on every voter in every state. Already 44 states have realized a refusal is the right course, whether or not they understand the full implications.

Asked for Voters’ Data, States Give Trump Panel a Bipartisan ‘No’https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/us/politics/kris-kobach-states-voter-fraud-data.html“The vice chairman and day-to-day leader of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Voter Integrity, Kris Kobach, had asked election officials in a letter to turn over the data “if publicly available,” apparently to aid a nationwide search for evidence of election irregularities. Besides election information like voters’ names and party affiliations, the commission sought personal information including birth dates, felony conviction records, voting histories for the past decade and the last four digits of all voters’ Social Security numbers.”Forty-four states and DC have refused to give certain voter information to Trump commissionhttp://www.cnn.com/2017/07/03/politics/kris-kobach-letter-voter-fraud-commission-information/index.html
Both Republican and Democratic states are rightly considering the demands an over-reach. The supposed incentive for it was based on a Trump lie, one of many, that he should have won the popular vote as well as the electoral college, though he lost it by about 3 million. He claimed they were illegal voters, a statement widely condemned as absurd.
As we all know well by now, truth does not matter to Trump if a lie is more useful. We can wonder if he is really deluded, or we can imagine why he (or Bannon, perhaps) would want this information. Combined with the already vast information available in Cambridge Analytica’s collection, what might be possible?The other purpose
behind the Trump election commission has gotten more attention because it is more obvious: a nationwide attempt to suppress opposition voters. This is indeed a danger. State-level voter suppression schemes have done considerable harm already, and the commission contains known perpetrators and advocates of that tactic.Kris Kobach: Co-chair of the commission, Kansas Secretary of State, and perhaps the chief architect of the Right’s coordinated attack on voting rights.Hans von Spakovsky: worked at the far-right Heritage Foundation, whose president openly admitted that his group was working to impose voter ID requirements across the country in order to elect “more conservative candidates.”J. Christian Adams: Former Bush Department of Justice Attorney and a longtime critic of the Voting Rights Act.Ken Blackwell: Former Ohio Secretary of State and current senior fellow at the Radical Right hate group Family Research Council. In 2004 Blackwell became notorious for his efforts to hinder minority voter registration in Ohio in an effort to support the reelection of President George W. Bush.
This plot will likely be attempted whether or not the commission gets any state voter data. That information would not substantiate Trump’s outrageous claims anyway, unless fraudulently altered, but suppression has been done by states based on no evidence at all of voter fraud. Voters should fight back loudly and strongly if Republicans attempt to legislate restrictions on voting. At least this will be a public issue.Attack on the press
Trump’s war with the press is, naturally, widely known. One of the surest ways to get coverage by the news media is to attack it. But Trump is not just trying to be the center of attention. He is attempting to control the message by trying to destroy the legitimacy of the press, and its ability to point out the countless inconsistencies between his statements and reality.
No one likes negative press coverage, and may complain if it seems unfair, but Trump has taken it to a new extreme. To most of us it seems to be an ongoing absurdity, but to his base of deplorable supporters, it gives them an opportunity to see him as a victim of untruth, rather than the source of lies.
Trump “jokingly” hints at violence against reporters, and his supporters feel empowered to threaten it more overtly. Vladimir Putin, at their meeting in Hamburg, joked about the journalists who hurt the president. In Russia, 82 journalists have been killed since 1993, most of them covering politics, corruption, and crime. That is the kind of power Trump would like to emulate in this country.
We must not underestimate the danger posed by this administration. Trump’s incompetence at governing and bizarre behavior make it easy to discount him as an egotistical clown, but remember that Steve Bannon is providing direction behind the scenes, and there is nothing funny about that.

So, how do we deal with a disaster that is also an ongoing threat of worse to come? In several ways, without letting any of them distract from any other.
[1] Naturally we must continue to go hard with the investigation, drilling into every illegality and corruption that can be found. That is our best weapon and likeliest chance to remove him before 2020, or at least to neutralize his agenda. Investigating the Russian cooperation with the Trump campaign is extremely important because this is likely where Trump crossed the line. Conspiring with a foreign government for illegal activity designed to help him win the election, and the ongoing attempt to cover up that conspiracy make him vulnerable to impeachment, or at least the indictment and prosecution of those directly responsible. It is the way to removing or reducing the threat to our Constitution and democracy posed by the regime.
[2] We must vigorously oppose the Republicans who are using this Presidency to pursue their right-wing goals. Some of them may despise Trump, but as the typical ruthless moral-free creatures they are, will exploit him as long as possible for their anti-humanitarian goals.
[3] But the most important strategy is for Democrats to study and fully understand the Big Data methods of election campaigning. We MUST NOT allow it to be used successfully against us again. If there were a way to ban its use entirely, that would be ideal. It is not a straightforward, transparent technique that most Democrats would prefer. Exposing its use is not enough. We need the ability to use it ourselves to counter them, and use it even more effectively. It is not inherently dishonest, nor does it require keeping it secret. The public should know how they are being influenced. It is only a technologically sophisticated, more scientific approach to advertising, conveying targeted messages to receptive voters.

Reasons to Oppose
Just in case anyone has missed the last several months of news and public discussion, here are some further reminders of the disaster that began on November 8, 2016.

The awareness of the Russian connection, even among Republicans, has produced an anti-Russian reaction that goes beyond any reasonable response. Both the House and Senate have passed bills taking a harsh line, the Senate increasing sanctions, and the House, under cover of anti-North Korea sanctions, threatens to target Russian shipping. None of that is necessary or desirable. Democrats have gone along with this, unfortunately. Threatening North Korea could actually set off a war that would devastate South Korea.

So, Trump’s suspicious dealings and attempts to cover them up have sabotaged any desired improvement in relations with Russia, including whatever financial dealings that he or his cohorts might have planned.

Meanwhile, Trump is a predictable domestic disaster– predictable by anyone except his loyal victims, that is. Those who believed he was for the white working class may not admit they were conned. At least, they think, he favors white people.

He proves that with his attempts to ban Muslims from several countries, which is, and should have been declared, illegal religious discrimination. That doesn’t matter, because it was all for show.

So was the threat of the Mexican border wall. An actual wall probably won’t happen, but thousand of Mexicans who ought to be welcome to stay and work, people with families, are being targeted for deportation. So are Iraqis, some who have lived here for decades. Some are being sent back to a dangerous country they no longer know.

The Republican obsession with taking health care affordability away from the needy may become a reality with Trump’s approval. Naturally he lied when he promised something better.. There are so many outrages that we’re no longer shocked. The racist Attorney General cannot be counted on to enforce civil rights, or prosecute murders by police. He wants to return to long sentences for victimless drug crimes, reversing prison reform, and to stop funding forensic evidence research. De Voss wants to privatize public schools. Trump wants to eliminate Wall Street reforms. He wants to increase income inequality, give tax breaks to the wealthy.

Everything that will insure that ordinary people will remain powerless to change anything or improve our well-being in any significant way, that is Trump’s agenda.

The declaration of independence is the original statement of principles of the USA. There is more to it than some think. As we know, it was many years before some of the principles were even attempted to be fulfilled. Some have yet to be followed. Knowing that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, we might question whether those who signed the declaration actually believed what it says. No doubt they agreed with the list of complaints, and felt that they warranted separation from England, but were the principles just a way to make themselves sound more high-minded than they really were?

When the declaration was signed, neither independence nor the principles were made reality. The signers knew this. Independence alone would require a war, upon which they were betting their lives. Why do that, if only to change who was running the show and nothing else? I believe they did mean what they signed, even knowing they were not living up to the principles they declared.

So besides raising a collective middle finger at the British Empire of the time, what does it say?

(1) It declares that the states, formerly the colonies, are united. This would later be challenged and re-established by the Civil War.

(2) All men are created equal. It required a second war to make that legally established. Though many of us believe it to be a self-evident truth, many reject that, thinking that some skin colors, ethnic origins, religious beliefs, and levels of wealth make some superior and others inferior. Equality is a difficult principle to put into practice when it is not universally agreed on.

(3) Inalienable rights exist, which we cannot relinquish even if we wanted to, including (but are not limited to):

Life This right, obvious as it seems, is not very well protected by law and practice.
How is it not clear to everyone that it prohibits the death penalty for any crime? Life is an inalienable right, one which the government MUST uphold and defend. Defense of life can use deadly force if necessary, but punishment by killing in cold blood is never excusable.

Though we think in terms of protecting lives from enemies and criminal violence, a proper government is obligated to ensure a safe environment in which to live and work, to the greatest extent possible, and provide equal access to health care for all. When we hear that health care should be a right, that principle was established here, in 1776.

Liberty is always relative, not absolute, since the extent of each person’s liberty is limited by every other person’s. But it is to be protected equally for all. Until slavery was abolished, liberty may as well have been left off the list. To a degree we can claim to have liberty now, the freedom to do whatever does not harm another. Over the centuries we have increased that degree, though the struggle is not complete. Needless to say, some still have more liberty than others.

The pursuit of happiness. The right to pursue happiness requires liberty, and could be said to be its purpose. There are those who pursue misery, of course, for themselves or for others, but there is no need to encourage that.
Happiness is something all must define for themselves. It might be seeking wealth, or only enough for food, warmth, and shelter. It definitely includes freedom of thought, belief, and association. As with liberty, it cannot include the right to deprive others of theirs.

Governments are established to secure our rights. That is their purpose, for which they are essential. In any population there is a constant dynamic conflict between the rights of each person, which must be resolved by the establishment of a government empowered to make and enforce laws. Most of the time it will be enough that these exist, informing all of the limits of their liberties, ensuring mutual respect. Sometimes governments need to act.

The consent of the governed is the justification for the power of a government. Though the word “democracy” is not used here, it is obviously the only means to establish ongoing consent by the people, beyond the initial establishment. It also means that a government must protect itself from influences other than the people who provide their continued consent.
In this, our system has not done a very good job, resulting in a continuing transition from democracy to oligarchy. We have left our system of electing legislators and executives, state and national, vulnerable to the influence of the power of wealth.

Independence was won. Later, freedom for slaves was won. The American Revolution is still ongoing, a struggle waged as it must be, in courts of law, at the polls, by citizens demonstrating and protesting in the streets, by students seeking the truth, by the press keeping us informed and providing public forums. It goes on, often too slowly, sometimes stalled by counter-revolutionaries.

Independence, despite the principles proposed, created a flawed nation, one waging cruel and ruthless aggression against the native people, and many needless wars. It permitted slavery for most of the century following. The descendants of freed slaves are still struggling for equality. Our experiment with freedom and democracy, imperfect as it remains, has inspired other nations, some of which have improved upon it.

That first declaration, 241 years ago, is not a dead irrelevant document. It remains a challenge for today, to fulfill its principles in fact, not just in theory.

-CosmicRat July 4, 2017

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.